WASHINGTON, May 31 (UPI) -- The millions of Americans suffering from diabetes need all the help they can get managing their disease, experts said Wednesday.
And that help should go beyond primary-care physicians, because battling the sixth-leading cause of death in the country "takes a village," University of North Carolina diabetes researcher Edwin Fisher said at a news conference in Washington.
An advocacy group of diabetes experts -- ranging from endocrinologists to diabetes educators known as a Diabetes Roundtable -- is pushing for a new approach to living with diabetes that calls for a group effort.
A new study shows that while many diabetes patients say they understand how to control their disease, few are actually doing what their doctors say it takes.
For example, 69 percent of patients studied in the survey, commissioned by the American Association of Diabetes Educators, said they feel knowledgeable about the disease.
But 81 percent of physicians say they are frustrated with the number of their type 2 diabetes patients who follow their treatment precisely.
There is a "gap between what patients know and what doctors think they know," said Sethu Reddy, an Ohio-based endocrinologist and member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.
Approximately 21 million Americans have the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ninety-five percent of those cases are type 2 diabetes, high blood glucose levels that result primarily from diet and exercise habits. Diabetes can cause a range of ailments, including blindness, kidney failure and death.
Knowing the risks of diabetes, however, is not always enough to encourage patients to do what they need to keep the disease in check.
Patients "are not connecting the dots," added Donna Rice, president-elect of the American Association of Diabetes Educators. Rice provides diabetes self-management training at Botsford General Hospital in Michigan.
Diabetes patients often know that they should control their sugar intake and weight with diet and exercise, Reddy said. But actually getting regular exercise and resisting unhealthy foods is more difficult.
"The connection between knowing and doing is the problem for people with diabetes," Fisher said. "They need ongoing follow-up and support."
The solution, according to Diabetes Roundtable, is promoting more comprehensive diabetes care that includes education and support.
The group recommends that patients receive advice from diabetes educators beyond their primary-care doctors, ranging from personalized exercise plans to methods of incorporating healthy eating in their schedules.
"People don't want to know about diabetes," Rice said. "They want to know about their diabetes.
"When we talk about healthy eating, when we talk about exercise, it needs to be personal," she added.
Paying for this kind of comprehensive care may prove difficult for low-income diabetes patients, however. While coverage for diabetes patients varies by insurance plan, some experts say it is unrealistic that many Americans could actually afford the kind of "team-centered approach" the Diabetes Roundtable advocates.
"Anybody who has diabetes and they're part of this uninsured population ... they're going to have a hard time accessing the kind of comprehensive coverage they need," Kevin Lucia, a professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, told United Press International. Lucia, who studies trends in U.S. health insurance, estimated that almost 50 million Americans are uninsured.
Even for more extensive insurance plans, "they're not necessarily going to cover all the recommendations that this roundtable is suggesting," Lucia said.
